


Quit Playing Games

by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ain't that just the way?, Game Night, Gen, Platonic VLD Week 2017, The universe is screwed, UNO, Voltron is finished, friendship over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 03:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11432556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster
Summary: Lance makes a deck of Uno cards.  It goes as well as expected.For Platonic Week 2.0





	Quit Playing Games

“Boom.”

Shiro looked down at the deck of cards, then back up at Lance.  “I thought we decided poker was a bad idea.”

Smirking back, Lance pulled up a chair and shrugged.  “Wasn’t for me. I was dealer.  You were the ones who kept going.”

“Wasn’t for me either,” Keith pointed out mildly, still not looking up from his pad.  “I’m okay with a month of no chores again.”

Hunk groaned.  “I hated that.  Please don’t make me go back to that mathematical hell.  I still don’t understand.”

Glancing around the room, Pidge frowned.  “Um, is no one going to point out that this isn’t a deck of playing cards?”

“Finally.”  Lance held up the deck, grinning.   On it, in cheerful yellow letters, was ‘UNO’.

Oh.  Shiro had played that before.  “Have we had this the entire time?”

Lance shook his head.  “Nah.  I printed them here.  I had to do it a couple of times to remember how many of each card there was supposed to be.  Actually, I’m still not sure.  But I put in a ton so it should work out.  Want to play?”

Frowning, Hunk rested his chin on his palm.  “It’s still pretty luck based,” he pointed out, glancing sideways at Keith.

“Not as much as poker.  And besides, I have a counter to it.  There’s 7 and 0 rules.”

Okay, Shiro definitely hadn’t played that version.  “And those are?”

Pulling the deck out of the box, Lance flipped through the cards until he found a 7.  “If you play one of these, you get to trade your hand with anyone you pick.”  Then he pulled out a 0.  “If you play a zero, everyone trades their hand one place to the right.”

That was-

How were you even supposed to play like that, if everyone was shuffling their hands around constantly?  

“That’s definitely more interesting than normal,” Pidge agreed, eyes bright and calculating.

Nodding, Hunk lifted his head.  “I’m in,” he agreed, voice steely.

Lance raised his brows at Keith. “What about you?  Want to play something you might actually lose?”

“It’s a card game,” Keith replied.  “There’s no consequences to losing.  So yeah, sure, I’ll play.  Shiro?”

Honestly, the entire thing kind of bugged Shiro.  He liked winning, and the idea of a game where he could get close and then have someone steal it from him sucked.

But all four of them were staring at him hopefully, and, well, Shiro wasn’t the one to back down from a challenge.

“Yeah, alright,” he replied, biting back a sigh.  “I’ll deal.”  He held out his hand.

Lance whined.  “I’m dealer,” he said. “They’re my cards.”

Taking his hand back, Shiro shrugged.  “Okay.  But I’m going to judge you while you shuffle.”

That made Lance pause.  He considered for a few moments, then shoved them over.  “Fine.  Don’t rip any.”

“Of course.”  Shiro shuffled them quickly, first standard, then throwing in a waterfall, and finally using a dynamo shuffle, just to be an ass.  He handed them back over to Lance, smiling with too many teeth.  “All in one piece.”

Lance stuck out his tongue right back, which was fair.  Shiro started it by being childish, but they were playing a ridiculous children’s card game.  He could afford to be silly.

“Alright,” Lance called, handing out the cards.  “Let’s begin.  Youngest first.”  With that, he flipped over a card from the top of the deck - a green 3.

Pidge narrowed her eyes at him, but then shrugged and put down a green +2.

“Hey,” Hunk muttered.  “C’mon, first thing?”  But he threw down a red +2.

Frowning, Keith looked down at the cards, then at the others.  “I’ve never played,” he pointed out.

Oh, right.

“Same color or same card,” Shiro replied.  “Except that’s a plus two.  You can only respond with another one.  If you don’t have one, you have to draw that many cards.  The idea is to get down to zero cards.  If you have one, you have to say uno.  If you don’t and someone else says it before your turn ends, you have to draw another card.”

Keith nodded slowly.  “Oh.  That’s easy enough.”  He frowned down at his hand, then drew four.

The table exploded into noise.

“You don’t have one?” Lance asked, at the same moment Hunk gave a gleeful whoop and Pidge gasped.

Shaking his head, Keith frowned at them.  “No.  Was I not supposed to draw?”

“No, you did it right,” Shiro replied mildly.  “It was just unusually unlucky that you didn’t have one.”

Keith nodded.  “Oh.  Okay.  Whatever.  Do I play now?”

“Nope, you’re skipped after any ‘draw’ card.”

Pidge leaned against Hunk, giving a huge sigh of relief.  “Math and reason have prevailed.”

Leaning back, Hunk smiled.  “They have.  The universe makes sense again.”

Keith eyed them both.  “You’re all being ridiculous.  Um, Shiro,I have a weird card.  Is black another color in this game?.”

“Black cards you can play no matter what,” Shiro replied.  “Like this.” He played a color change.

“Yup,” Lance replied.  “Now he can pick whatever color he wants.”

“Green.”

“Man, this sucks for you.  We’re going to give you shit for playing favorites with every color.”

That earned Lance a flat look, and he rolled his eyes at Pidge and Hunk for their continued dramatic praises to the power of math.

Lance laughed and looked at his cards.  “Damn.  Alright.”  He sighed.  “I’ve got nothing for this.”  He reached and drew from the deck once, twice, a third time, and then slammed down a green 0.  “Oh, hey, works for me.  One to the right, everyone.”

Making a face, Shiro obediently handed his deck over to Lance.  He frowned down at his cards, resisting the urge to make a face.  Keith had gotten a pretty terrible starting hand.  A solid two thirds the cards were red.

Maybe Keith’s luck really had run out.

Shiro hoped not. That would cause them all kinds of problems.

“Eugh,” Pidge muttered, taking the large hand from Lance.  “C’mon, there still aren’t greens in here.”  She started to pull from the deck, making a face with every card that wasn’t a right color.  Finally she slammed down a +4.  “Ha!  Blue.”

Groaning, Hunk drew.  “You know I don’t even have any blues.  This is your crummy hand!”

Pidge gave him a shark’s grin back.  “Yup.  What do you care?  You’re skipped anyway.”

“So this means war.”

“Oh yeah.”

And thus began the longest card game of Shiro’s life.

***

An hour later, Shiro was clutching four uno cards tightly, the paper threatening to break under the force of his grip.

Next to him, Lance was struggling to hold all 12 of his cards, after a series of bad horrifically bad draws in search of something to match a yellow 4.  His eyes were narrowed at Pidge, who had only two cards left and who was sporting a smirk.

“I know that I know your hand,” Lance murmured.  “I had it earlier.”

Pidge smiled back nearly angelically.  “Then play something I don’t have.”

Scowling down at the blue 8, Lance audibly ground his teeth together.

Keith groaned and put down his own large hand, rubbing over the bridge of his nose.  “Just let her win.  It feels like we’ve been playing this for a year.”

_ “No!” _  That was Lance and Hunk, of all people.  The force of their combined shout made Keith nearly jump out of his chair.

Shiro didn’t even look over.  His eyes were still totally locked onto Pidge, waiting.

No one had gotten to Uno yet.  In the last hour.

He was  _ ready. _

Finally, Lance groaned and put down a yellow 8.  

Pidge met Lance’s eyes and her grin grew.

She put down a yellow 4.  “Oops.”

_ “Uno!” _ Shiro shouted, teeth bared.  He leaned forward until his chest dug into the table.

Pidge’s eyes went wide, and she looked down at her hand.  “I said ‘uno’.” She tried, but her voice shook.

Snorting, Hunk shook his head.  “No, you said ‘oops’ because you were taunting Lance.  We all heard you.”

For a moment, Pidge’s jaw worked.  Then she groaned and drew two more cards.  “I hate you.”

“I love you,” Lance told Shiro.

Grinning back, Shiro shrugged.  “Should have been paying attention.”

“Anyway.”  Hunk put down a yellow 7, then held out his hands to Pidge.  “Trade time.  Honestly, I should have backed you up and gotten a better hand.”

Pidge groaned and handed it over, taking Hunk’s 6 card hand with a rough yank.  “Ugh.  I hate everyone.”

Reaching over, Keith put down a green 7.  “Don’t get comfy with those.”

“C’mon!”  Hunk sighed as he took Keith’s even larger hand.  “I hate these rules.”

“This was the worst idea,” Shiro agreed.  He stared down at his own cards.  He had two yellows, and damn Keith for changing the color.  His other cards were a red 0, which he had no intentions of playing unless he had to, and then-

Well, this would have been nice to save, but oh well.

Shiro played his color change +4.  “Yellow.”

Rather than groan, Lance shrugged and played his own.  “I’m good sticking with yellow.”  

Rolling her eyes, Pidge sighed. “Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t keep my hand.”  She played one as well.  “Green, because screw you both.”

They all stared intently at Hunk, who looked back.  Then he shook his head.  “This is going to end badly.”

He played another +4.  “Blue.”

How many +4 cards were in this goddamn deck?

Keith didn’t even look up at all the stares.  Instead, he played another +4.  “Red.”

And the it was Shiro’s turn again.  With five +4 cards in a messy pile in front of him.

Dropping his hand, Shiro put his face down on the table.  “No.”

“You started it!” Lance cheered, throwing his hands up.  “Draw, Shiro.”

_ “No!” _

“Don’t sulk,” Pidge said, not even bothering to hide her smug look.  “That’s what you get.”

“Just take the stupid cards.  Who cares?”  

Reaching out blindly, Shiro took the pile of cards and started to count out twenty more.  He added it to his hand with a smack, still without picking up his head.  “Keith, if I don’t make it out of this alive-”

That earned him a snort, and Shiro’s chair jolted as Keith kicked it.  “I refuse to inherit this mess.”

“Someone destroy Keith for me,” Shiro begged.  “It’s my dying wish.”

Hunk laughed.  “You know, you almost definitely have a seven in that massive pile.”

Slowly, Shiro picked his head up.

Yeah, okay, a couple more rounds.

***

“Mmm, you still have a lot of cards, Pidge,” Hunk commented.  “Why don’t you go again?”  He played a red reverse card, smiling politely.

Putting a hand on her chest, Pidge gave a dramatic gasp.  “Oh, how lovely of you.  But no, you should go again.  I insist.”  She played a yellow reverse.

“Yellow, even, how nice!”  Hunk played a green reverse card.  “Right back at you.”

“You shouldn’t have!  No, I mean it, you should go next.” Another green reverse.

Shiro scowled at them both.  Pidge had ended up with his hell hand a few rounds later, so he knew for a fact she could keep this up for a while.  “Do you even need the rest of us?”

That earned him a flat look.  “Whose fault is my hand?”

“All of yours,” Shiro replied darkly.

Lance yawned. “Seriously, yeah, let’s move on, c’mon.  It’s been an hour and a half, we need to end this stupid game.”

Shrugging, Hunk placed down a green skip.  “If it bugs you two that much, we’ll even jump right to you.”

“Hey!”  Keith scowled at him, placing his three cards down.  “C’mon, I’m the only one even close to winning.  We can end this quickly if you don’t want to just stop.”

“I think that’s the problem.”  Shiro played a green 7, then offered his hand to Keith, taking the three cards back.  “Or I can win faster.”

Laughing, Lance revealed his green 0.  “Pass it along, everyone.”

Hunk let out a moan as he took Pidge’s ridiculous pile, and Shiro scowled as he handed off the three cards to take his hand right back.  “Dammit, Lance.  No one play reds.”

“Shiro!”

“We could have been training,” Keith muttered.  “We could have been sleeping.  Dinner’s going to be goo tonight, too.”

Checking his pad, Hunk crinkled his nose.  “Yeah, it is.  Sorry, everyone.”  He turned the pad over, then glanced at Keith.  “Worth it if you don’t win.”

“Oh, c’mon.  This is stupid.  I don’t want to play this anymore.  Hunk’s hand is bad anyway.” Keith flipped his cards down into the discard pile and crossed his arms.  “There.  I lose.  Can we end this?”

Pidge’s lips thinned. “I still want to win.”

“Same,” Lance agreed.

Showing his teeth, Shiro shrugged one shoulder.  “Five +4 cards.  I’m getting you all back.”

Hunk considered them all, then leaned back in his chair.  “I’ll keep playing.”

“Seriously?”  Keith threw his hands in the air, head flopped back over the back of his chair.  

The game continued.

***

Finally, everyone was down to only a few cards.

Shiro clutched his two carefully, watching the deck like a hawk.  Current card was a green 4.  Shiro’s hand was a red 7 and a green 9.  If the current color just stayed he was golden.

Looking over from the other side of the table, Hunk held his own two cards tightly.  He seemed to hold his breath as Pidge played a green 2.  For a moment he hesitated, then groaned and drew.  And again.  And again.  And  _ again. _

7 cards total until he finally slammed down a green 5.

“No,” Hunk groaned, smacking his now hefty hand against his face.  “I was so cloooose.”

“Sorry, buddy,” Shiro replied, trying for sympathy and not managing.  “Uno.”  He put down his green card.

Lance chewed the inside of his cheek, looking between Shiro and Pidge, who had just three cards.  “Does anyone remember what he has?”

“No,” Pidge admitted darkly.  “But I don’t like his face.  I think he might have another green.”

Shiro kept his expression carefully neutral, one brow raising.

Tapping his fingers on the table, Hunk sighed.  “I know that hand had a few greens and a couple of reds, but I don’t remember what’s been played with it since.  That was a couple of turns ago.”

“Seriously, do you have another green?” Lance asked, voice edged.

Shiro only shrugged and smiled.

“I’m trusting you,” Lance said, which was a very weird comment.

Then he played a green reverse.

Shiro stared at it, then cursed loudly.  It wasn’t until he heard the echo of his voice that he realized it had been in Galran.  

“I trusted you!” Lance repeated.  “I was going to let you win and  _ end _ this, you ass!”

“I thought you were trying to trick me!” Shiro snapped back.  He groaned and drew again, then slammed down the red reverse.  “Well, that wasn’t ba-”

Pidge slammed her hands down on the table.   _ “Uno!” _

Looking down at his hand, Shiro stared up at her.  Then he burst into laughter and drew.  “You’ve been waiting this whole time, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Pidge hissed, slumping back down into her seat.  “Revenge.  Revenge!”

Still looking deeply disappointed in Shiro, Lance played a red 2.  “For shame, Shirogane.  How can we trust you now?”

“If you think we’re forming Voltron right after this, guess again.”  Keith stared at them all, chin on his palm and eyes distant and glazed.  “We may have damned the universe with this game.”

Pidge considered, then nodded and played a red 8.  “Yeah, fair.”

“This was a little silly,” Hunk agreed, playing a +2.  “Sorry, Shiro.”

“No, it’s fine, everything’s fine,” Shiro replied, voice equal parts cheer and mania.  “Bring them on.  Fine.”

Lance groaned.  “Sorry, this is all I have.”  He played a blue +2.  “I hate these cards so much.  I hate this  _ game.” _

“You started it,” Keith muttered.

Tilting his head, Lance paused like he was thinking about it.  “That was like a decade ago.  No one really remembers.”

Keith scowled. “It was two hours ago and  _ you started it!” _

“If you two start a fight right now, I swear I’ll reset the ship’s course into the nearest  _ sun, _ ” Shiro hissed.  “Do not test me right now.”

Both settled back reluctantly, glancing at Pidge.  She shrugged and played a +2 as well, this one yellow.  “Uno.”

“Just give me the cards,” Hunk sighed, holding out his hand.  He took all four with a philosophical sigh.

Shiro took a deep breath, considering his two cards, then looked at Pidge.  “Uno.”  He put down his color change.  “Red.”

Eyes narrowed, Pidge shot him a scowl.

Lance looked at them both.  “Both of you, tell me your cards.   _ Right now.” _

“Red,” Shiro admitted.  “Obviously.”

Pidge raised her chin high.  “Blue.”

Considering, Lance shrugged.  “Eh, screw it.  I’m not dealing with this.  Your problem, Hunk.”  He played a red skip.

“I’m okay with that, actually,” Pidge admitted.

Hunk looked over them all, then sighed.  “This is all I can do.”  

He played a red 0.

No.

Shiro took Hunk’s deck with horror, reluctantly letting Lance take his red card.  “Hunk,  _ why?” _ He asked.

“It was all I could do!” Hunk repeated.  “Sorry!”

Looking down at the handful of mostly blue and green cards, Shiro groaned and started to draw, finally putting down a red 2.  “Dammit.”

“Uno, and then done!”  Lance hopped up, pumping one fist in the air and slamming down the final card.  “Finished!  Over!  Victory!”

Slumping against the table, Shiro sighed.  “Good game,” he managed, though it wasn’t with good grace.  He heard the others offer their congratulations, some more sincerely than others.

While Lance was still doing a victory dance around the length, the door opened, and Allura stepped in.  “Here you are.  I’ve been looking for you.  Dinner is just about ready.”

“Hello, Princess,” Hunk greeted.  “Sorry, we got a little involved with our game.”

Oh no.  No no no.  That was the wrong word.

Shiro’s head jerked up just as Allura clapped her hands together.  “A game? Like poker? How do you play?”

Keith caught Shiro’s eye, pure horror in his eyes.  “If I don’t make it out of here-”

“You’re suffering with me,” Shiro hissed right back.

Lance spread his arms grandly, frustration forgotten in the haze of victory.  “Of course!  Here, take a seat, we’ll show you how-”

_ “No!” _  Four separate voices shouted, but it was too late.  Allura’s teeth were already sharp.

Resting his face in his hands, Shiro resigned himself to his fate.


End file.
